Hi all and Tamara My Concise Oxford (1951) defines 'mugwump' as 'Great man, boss; one who holds aloof from party politics (from native *mugquomp* great chief) and marks the word with an asterisk, denoting US use only.
My current Gage (Cdn.) defines it as US usage, an independent in polictics, from Algonquian, *mukquomp* great man My Secretary's Desk Book, including the Winston Dictionary, 1945: 'a voter who belongs to one party, but who claims the right to vote with another, if he prefers the candidate of the latter.' (etym. sources not given in this version) For good measure I looked it up in my Canadian/French Canadian dictionary. No entry for mugwump (not surprising) My Concise Columbia (1983) offers: 'in US history, mugwumps was a slang term for the Republicans who, in 1884, deserted their party nominee, James G. Blaine, to vote for the Democratic candidate, Grover Cleveland.' A Funk and Wagnalls (1959) has a similar entry, and includes a broad definition as in the Winston entry. I am familiar with the word, but only because I've stumbled across it when looking up something else - in a dictionary. -- bye for now Bev, for the time being surrounded by dictionaries, in Sooke, BC (west coast of Canada) To unsubscribe send email to [EMAIL PROTECTED] containing the line: unsubscribe lace-chat [EMAIL PROTECTED]
